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Old 01-03-16, 08:39 PM   #11
jeff5may
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Yes, the cbive-1 txv has an internal check valve. It has a VGA charge in the sensing bulb that automatically limits your suction pressure to a max of about 100 psi. It has an external equalizer. Not sure if it is adjustable.

That ranco reversing valve is the same one I have used in a few of my builds. Works like magic. Just make sure to buy the right solenoid coil for your controls. They make low voltage, high voltage, ac and dc coils.

Surplus city combines shipping on their eBay orders if you pay for everything at once. They have good phone support as well. Their inventory moves pretty fast, so the phone people can find parts that may not be listed on eBay yet. Plus, their listings are sort of random, not real easy to wade through.

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Old 01-04-16, 07:08 PM   #12
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so this is my shopping list so far.

two txvs maybe a 3rd just in case lol
TXV

1 reversing valve. i haven't decided on a voltage just yet so im not ordering yet but it looks like 24v is the most common so ill probably do that
REVERSING VALVE

2 liquid line filter drier for cleaning the propane as it goes into the system
drier

was thinking a bi flow liquid drier since it will be a heat pump. but do i need a bi flow or can i just put a single direction one before it goes into the reversing valve?
bi flow filter drier

anything else major?
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Old 01-05-16, 06:06 AM   #13
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Got a question on these small filter dryers. How do you know when they are depleted - as in, they will no longer remove moisture?

The small cost is nice, but would a larger capacity dryer be better?

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Old 01-05-16, 07:40 AM   #14
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Fordguy,
If you might ever run more experimental rigs, buy extra parts. Grabbing heavyweight items such as control transformers, contactors, compressors,etc. together with lightweight parts (sensors, solenoids, valves, fittings, etc.) will save you more money than you might expect. Plus, being a surplus outlet, the parts you need might not be there for the same price later. Last time I checked, all of the coax coil heat exchangers that surplus city had left were not cheap.

A single filter in the liquid line is better than one at the reversing valve. All the major components have screens in them to protect themselves from flaky sized particles. The filter grabs all the dusty stuff and water. Near the compressor, we want as little restriction as possible. In a gas line, the velocity is much higher, so a couple of things happen. First, the higher flow rate gives the filter element less time to catch impurities. Second, the restriction will force a pressure drop that tends to steal from whichever heat exchanger the filter is next to. In the liquid line, the velocity is slower, so the filter has more time to process the flow and doesn't drop as much pressure. If the compressor or a heat exchanger belches filth, it will flow through a check valve and be filtered before reaching an orifice.

Steve,
The filter-dryers have a small amount of silica gel in them to absorb water, like the little "do not eat" packs inside packaged products of all sorts. There's not much in the can, and bigger cans hold more, but the stuff generally holds a few drops worth of liquid water before saturating. The rest of the element is mostly zeolite. Besides being a molecular sieve, this stuff can also absorb half its weight in water and neutralize acids and alkalis.

The only ways to tell if the filter is spent are to measure pressure drop through the filter and to test for acid or water. A sight glass installed downstream of the filter with the right "eye" ring indicators will let you know.

Seeing that Fordguy just found some for 2 dollars each on the web, it would be economical to change the filters frequently when charging with "dirty stinky" BBQ gas. As for the filter in the unit, unless you have a compressor burnout or a breach to atmosphere, the filter should last for years.
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Old 01-05-16, 07:57 AM   #15
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Jeff, thanks for the information. I am going to recharge an R22 water to water geo unit with propane and the approximate need is 5 lbs. Going to use "dirty stinky" BBQ gas to charge . Would this small 2" filter be appropriate for that volume of gas? Agreed that once inline, the filter should last virtually forever . . .

Don't mean to go off thread, but I bet fordguy would also want to know.

Thanks in advance.

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Old 01-05-16, 08:48 AM   #16
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I do plan on building more. When my gf bought her house it came with 4 window at units. She only uses two of them so she is going to give me one of them. But that will be some other time. Guess I'll probably order a few extra parts when I order some..

But I Did find these two interesting things on eBay
New Copper Condenser Coil Heat Pump Coil Coax 2051 H | eBay
Mitsubishi Variable Speed Compressor with Inverter for A C and or Heat Pump | eBay

Has anyone figured out how to drive the inverter compressors? I know ac hacker had one but I don't remember the out come of that
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Old 01-07-16, 08:09 AM   #17
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So I've come up with an interesting list of things I would like to accomplish with this one compressor. It would have and outdoor coil, indoor coil, and a coil in the water heater.

These are the four scenarios
1. Heat water- cool basement
2.heat water - cool outside
3. Cool house - heat outside
4. Heat house -cool outside

I've started a diagram and I'm managed to get 2-4 of that list.

Also I just found out a guy I work with is really into program and electronics (arduino) so I'll see if I can get him to join and maybe add to the general heat pump controller thread
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Old 01-07-16, 11:27 AM   #18
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Steve,
Don't make me lie to you, I don't really know how long the catch-all style filters will last processing BBQ gas. I would hope a small one would last through a standard grill cylinder or two. I do know that they do pass a detectable amount of "stink" on a single pass, using the sniffer God gave me.

Fordguy,
I have a question.

In your 4 conditions, does basement equal house? Or are you going to have 2 heat exchanger indoors? If you will have only 1 indoor hx, you could run a desuperheater to get hot water during both heating and cooling modes.

That would be great if you could find someone to help with programming the arduino. The main hurdle we are facing in that thread is getting stuff to fit on (or in) the uno stamp. Most of the basic or generic setups presented are not very flexible or robust. The advanced programmers have been moving their projects to other hardware once they run out of something (pins, memory, comm ports, etc.) on the Uno stamp. The most common switch being the Mega.

Many of these alternate machines have been well-documented in their own threads. Given a much larger space to fill, the experts have created exquisite modular applications that are broken down into custom functional blocks that accomplish tasks of a wide variety. There are bits and pieces of good code scattered here, there, and everywhere that could be compacted and sorted out to play with each other on the uno. Neither AC or I are seasoned software developers, so integrating the functionality into the software is difficult to say the least. Neither one of us has made much progress lately. We have both built similar experimental rigs that have some functionality, but both rigs still need improvement. Finding someone able and willing to help would be super awesome!

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Old 01-08-16, 05:56 AM   #19
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I would only have one heat exchanger in the basement. I'm not sure why I didn't think of the de superheater.. That simplifies a lot of stuff lol I'll try to talk to that guy today. He has built a large solar hot are collector on the back of his shop. It was 30 degrees outside the other day and he told me that it was 60 degrees in is shop using just the solar air heater. He has it set up to where he can remotely look at inlet and outlet temps of the collector using arduino. I'm pretty sure he has some kind of electronics degree
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Old 01-12-16, 10:54 AM   #20
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Thought I would share my drawing of the system that cold heat water and heat cool a room hopefully it makes sense


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